Retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced a bill that would abolish the Electoral College, which has become a new target for liberals as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads the popular vote in the presidential election against president-elect Donald Trump.
Clinton leads Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, 47.9 percent (61,782,016) to 47.2 percent (60,834,437), CNN reported Wednesday.
The general election popular vote is moot since Trump, the Republican presidential nominee has already secured enough electoral college votes to win the presidency, which currently stands 290-232, according to CNN.
If Clinton's lead stands, it would be just the fourth time in U.S. history that a nominee won the popular vote but lost the
Electoral College vote, The Los Angeles Times reported
. The last time it happened was when Al Gore, vice president under Clinton's husband, Bill, lost to George W. Bush in 2000.
"In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote," Boxer, a Clinton supporter, said in a statement on her website. "When all the ballots are counted, Hillary Clinton will have won the popular vote by a margin that could exceed two million votes, and she is on track to have received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama.
"This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts," she continued.
The Electoral College can only be abolished through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, meaning that it would have to be ratified by Congress and then by three-fourth of the states within seven years after Congressional approval.
President-elect Donald Trump tweeted in 2012 that he disliked the Electoral College when President Barack Obama was re-elected.
Trump, though, called the Electoral College "genius" this week.
The president-elect suggested that he would have still won the election without the Electoral College because he would have campaigned in New York and California without it, drawing more popular votes away from Clinton.
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